We left our surprisingly plush and unexpected 2 room suite in Klamath Falls on Tuesday morning, heading north to Crater Lake National Park. A good night’s sleep realigned my brain and I was happy to be on the road again.

We stopped off along the road to take in the scenery and talk with some cows who stood on the other side of the fence chewing. It was a gorgeous morning; cool and clear.

Crater Lake has been on my life’s to-do list for what seems like forever. In my previously mentioned heat-induced emotional breakdown, I was nearly ready to skip Crater Lake rather than sit on the toe-roasting boxer twin for 200 miles of slab. Sometimes I could probably use a good shake to knock some sense in to me.

As Greg, Kenny and I sat on the wall that rimmed the lake, I was thankful that I was encouraged to keep moving forward that day in the gas station.

The way that the sunshine sparkled off the sapphire blue water looked like a layer of static hovering. It was like one of those magic eye posters.

Unfortunately, though it was June there was 55 inches of snow still standing around the lake’s ring road. This meant that we were unable to go all the way around the lake.
Crater lake marked the northern most section of our route. This was a bittersweet moment. I’d made it to see this place that danced across my imagination, but it was also the turnaround point of or trip. We were no longer on the upslope.

Heading southwest, we worked our way down the coast. We found a place to stay in Crescent City for the night.

Waving goodbye to Lee Vining, we headed north on 395 towards Bridgeport, California. Not far from Lake Mono, I saw a sign for “Bodie.” Seeing as how I might never pass that way again, I made the executive decision that we were going to stop and check the place out.

Bodie, California is a Ghost town. Literally.

After leaving Bodie, we hopped across the Sonora Pass which at nearly 10,000 ft elevation, was nice and cool. The road offered great, twisty riding and beautiful mountain scenery.

As we climbed down out of the mountains, the heat began to settle in. It was hot, hot, hot. We pulled off at a gas station to get a drink and I went in to full-blown meltdown wobbler mode. I’d had it. I hit the wall with the heat and the slow pace. Kenny donned his fire retardant suit and slowly talked me down off the ledge until I slowly began to return to my right mind.

After my cranky meltdown, we determined that we had to make tracks towards Klamath Falls, Oregon on the slab if we wanted to squeeze Crater Lake in. It became apparent that if we didn’t, we’d never make it. I was not happy about that. The next couple hundred hot highway miles sucked.